Income Mobility and Exits from Poverty of American Children, 1970-1992

This paper asks two questions about child poverty dynamics. The first is whether long-run transitions out of poverty have changed. The second is whether the events associated with exits from poverty have changed. We use the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to contrast the patterns of children 0 to 5 over the 1970's to patterns for similar children over the 1980's. We find that roughly half of the children who were in poor families at the start of each decade remained poor. For black children and children in female headed households, both the relative and absolute mobility are considerably lower. These mobility rates show no significant changes over time. Likewise, the events associated with exits out of poverty are remarkably stable.